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Ballfesting in Seattle with The Scarlet Pimpernel! D Day finally arrived in Seattle! The weekend was full of "D" sorts of things, Drizzles, DB, Dinner at the Dragonfish, Dueling, Demolition crews Destroying the King Dome and most of all Douglas Sills.
After lunch on the ferry to Seattle, Merrill
and I headed for the Paramount Theatre where we were joined by Bernie
Gellett's other "adopted daughter", Rachel Lindberg :-)
We hurried to our seats - which turned out to be much closer than we
expected them to be :-)
Almost immediately, the overture had begun,
the curtain opened, and we knew this would be one rocking,
rollicking, swashbuckling adventure and our "Ballfesting with
Douglas" afternoon had begun!
There were lots of changes since we saw it in
NYC two years ago, but we loved this version quite as much as we had
loved the original. Douglas was at his best, and a pure delight to
watch. William Paul Michals as Chauvelin was fantastic, and somehow
managed to keep a straight face throughout most of Douglas's ad-libbing
which few cast members are ever able to do for long, if at all.
The show was great, the cast was awesome and Douglas, as always, was charming, witty, gorgeous, captivating, hilarious and more fun than ever. He brings Sir Percy to life, but lets a little of Douglas peep out from time to time, and the audience was totally in the palm of his hand from the first moment on. It was one great afternoon at the theatre.
Afterwards we met a few of the cast members, including William Paul Michals. His performance as Chauvelin was electrifying - and by some enormous feat of self-control, he managed to not crack up at Douglas's antics (most of the time, anyway.) He seems to be following in Terrence Mann's very capable footsteps, having played the Beast in "Beauty and the Beast", as well as Javert, in "Les Miz" and now Chauvelin. He has also played the leading role in Phantom of the Opera. We expect to hear and see more of Mr. Michals in the future! 
We also met DB Bonds who we had seen in "Les Miz" a few years ago, and who we had been asked to pass a message along to, and we did that. As always we took lots of pics.
It was nice seeing Javy, Missy and Shannon
who had come down from Vancouver, Canada the day before to see the
show Friday night, and again on Saturday. They had come down
last summer to see "Jekyll and Hyde" and joined us for a
Ballfest then as well.
BUT ~ the biggest surprise was seeing Savannah Karate who some of you may know and remember as "Solas" from the MB list at amulation some time ago. (Debbie - you probably remember her very generous donation to the "Project Debbie" collection.) She looks absolutely wonderful, has finished and graduated from the two year college she had attended and is now trying to decide whether to stick with a theatre major or go into Science and Engineering, and has been accepted into both programs! We practiced our Olympic hugging techniques quite wonderfully! Solas is a world class hugger, and my "cyber sister" for several years now.
We were somewhat disappointed that Douglas
didn't join us after the show, but were told that he had taken a shower
and had fallen asleep almost immediately. By that time, Debbie had
joined us, we had postponed dinner by 15 minutes, so we hurried to the
Dragonfish, where we were joined by Sara, and the second half of our
Ballfest began, as always, with hugging and excited babbling, everyone
having so much to talk about! (Crys was unable to join us, having
spent a week in Bloomington, Indiana after being delayed in the Seattle
airport for 17 hours before even beginning the trip to Indiana! She
needed some rest, something Ballfesting always seems to be a bit short
of.)
Dinner was great, even though our very
favorite waiter (Ryan) no longer works at the Dragonfish, and he was
greatly missed. The restaurant is superb, with great food served
most attractively, and we had a wonderful visit until it was time for
Debbie to get to the theatre for the evening performance.
Rachel must have liked "something"
about the show, as she went back last night for another performance, and
did manage to meet Douglas and have a bit of a chat with him afterwards.
We spent our day yesterday by first watching
the King dome come down, and then on to Issaquah with granddaughter
Samantha, to see a new show called "Kiss Me Quick Before the
Lava Reaches the Village" which was a take-off on all those old
black and white films which were set in the "south seas" back
when I was Samantha's age, and it was hilarious. Afterwards it was
off to Sam's favorite Greek restaurant to see and enjoy the flaming
cheese dish called saganaki.
It was one wonderful weekend, and we will be
doing it all over again next weekend and will be joined by a different
group of Ballfest pals for another fun fest with Douglas, all thanks to
our having met via Ballfesting by email, by phone and in person. I
am saving all those hugs that you guys have sent for Douglas, and promise
to deliver them at the earliest possible moment. It's going to be
such a difficult job, but I am feeling quite up to it and will give it my
very best shot. ;-)
As you all know, I will do almost
anything for my Ballfest pals everywhere ;-D
Love, hugs and God bless, Jackie :-)
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